Cal Ripken Just One of Many Iron Horses

Streaks Cal Ripken will not challenge, at least not any time soon:

--Randy Smith did not miss a game for 11 years and a month while setting the NBA record with 906 consecutive appearances.

--Doug Jarvis holds the NHL mark with 964 games in a row without a miss, compiled over 12 years.

--Jim Marshall set the NFL standard by playing in 282 consecutive outings from 1960-79.

--The UCLA basketball team won 88 games in a row, from midway through 1970-71 until midway through 1973-74, and seven consecutive national championships under John Wooden.

Still, the Bruins could only come within 31 games of the all-time record for a home winning streak in college basketball. Kentucky has that at 129, set from 1943-55.

--Wayne Gretzky, the Great One, was named NHL most valuable player eight times in a row while with the Edmonton Oilers, earned the league scoring championship seven consecutive seasons and had at least 100 points 13 seasons in a row.

He should not be confused with Frank Boucher, the Nice One. Boucher won the Lady Byng Trophy for sportsmanship four consecutive times, didn’t win in 1932 and returned to win it the next three years. League officials then just awarded it to him permanently.

--The Lakers won 33 games in a row during the 1971-72 season, a streak 13 games longer than the second-best mark in NBA history.

Of course Chick Hearn broadcast every one of those. Hearn has been behind the mike for 2,784 consecutive regular season and playoff games spanning nearly 30 years.

--The Washington football team went 10 years, from 1907-17, without a loss, going 59-0-4 in that time. Oklahoma holds college football’s longest winning streak, 47 games.

--Parry O’Brien recorded 113 consecutive victories in the shot put, starting in 1952 while at USC and then continuing through national and international competition, where he easily won the gold at the 1956 Olympics.

An impressive string without the benefit of college competition? That belongs to Edwin Moses and his 107 consecutive victories in the 400-meter intermediate hurdles over nine years, nine months and nine days. Carl Lewis once went 10 years without losing in the long jump, but that was with “only” 65 meets.

Not to be forgotten is Al Oerter winning the discus in four consecutive Olympics.

--Fifty years ago, Byron Nelson had a record run of 11 consecutive titles on the PGA Tour, including a victory at the Atlanta Iron Lung Tournament. No one else has ever had a run better than four in a row. When reporters became skeptical of the streak because it came at a time when many pros, including Ben Hogan, were in the military, competitor Jackie Burke Jr. replied: “I don’t care if he was playing against orangutans, winning 11 straight is amazing.”

--Pro football’s most amazing single-season run belongs to the Miami Dolphins, who went 17-0, including playoffs, en route to a Super Bowl title after the 1972 season.

On the other side, for a longer term, is Tampa Bay. The Buccaneers lost 26 games in a row in 1976 and ’77. That’s seven games longer than anyone else in NFL history.

--The Boston Celtics won eight consecutive NBA championships and were in the finals 10 years in a row in the 1950s and ‘60s.

Before, during and after that, the United States had a 63-game winning streak and seven consecutive gold medals in men’s Olympic basketball, from inception in 1936 to the controversial loss to the Soviet Union in 1972.

--Two jockeys won 12 consecutive rides, Sir Gordon Richards in England in 1933 and Pieter Stroebel in Southern Rhodesia in 1958. The U.S. record is nine, set by Albert Adams over three days in 1930 at Marlboro Racetrack in Maryland.

--Joe Louis was the heavyweight champion without interruption for 11 years and 252 days, with 25 successful title defenses in a row before he retired. Whether that is more impressive than Rocky Marciano going 49-0, though not all as holder of the belt, to become the only champion at any weight to go undefeated for an entire pro career is for someone else to settle.

--Dean Cromwell coached the USC track team to nine consecutive NCAA titles, from 1935-43. One of his successors, Jess Mortensen, had a run of five consecutive championships. With Jess Hill in between, the three combined to lead the Trojans to a 16-year winning streak in dual meets--back when they were a big deal--92 in a row in all.

--Jeanne Maiden of Tacoma, Wash., rolled 40 consecutive strikes in 1986 to set a bowling record. By contrast, Shirley Tophigh of Las Vegas once had 14 splits in a row. So says the Guinness Book of Records.